The federal project to deliver high-speed rail from Quebec City to Toronto has completed its first round of public consultations.
Alto, the Crown Corporation leading the project, says the process is one of the largest consultations in Canadian history and it expects to publish a full report on the results next month.
Public support for the project is broad but uneven. A recent Abacus Data poll found 62 per cent of Canadians back it in some form — 25 per cent strongly, 37 per cent somewhat — while 18 per cent broadly oppose it and 20 per cent are undecided.
Some of the most vocal opposition has come from rural communities along a potential Eastern Ontario corridor. That pushback spans politicians, farmers and advocacy groups who have raised concerns about limited local economic benefits, the threat of land expropriation and the wider disruption it could bring to their communities.
I spoke with Alto president and CEO Martin Imbleau in a wide-ranging interview that aired on News Talk 580 CFRA on Saturday. You can listen to it here.
My intrepid CTV News Ottawa colleague Ted Raymond wrote about a potential Ottawa station based on this interview, as Imbleau effectively ruled out a downtown stop at the former Union Station-turned-Senate.
That was one thread in what was a 17-minute conversation. What follows focuses on the rural Eastern Ontario concerns I’ve been hearing from farmers, politicians and others in the region over the past month.
A note on the coverage
Some responses to this interview, including on social media, have suggested that raising these concerns amounts to opposing the project. It doesn’t.
Support for high-speed rail is easier to hold when you live in a city that would be served by it and your land isn’t in the corridor. That’s worth acknowledging plainly, not as an argument against the project, but as context for why the concerns of rural Eastern Ontario residents deserve serious attention alongside broader enthusiasm.
Asking pointed questions about expropriation, economic disruption and agricultural impacts is not a position. It’s journalism. Those raising concerns are not ‘anti-rail’ but people who face real and potentially irreversible consequences for their properties.
Parts of the following Q and A have been edited for length and clarity. I’ve also in some cases added my own context and analysis of those answers.
Rural politicians call for development to stop until concerns are addressed
A dozen mayors and reeves representing a chain of municipalities that stretch roughly 200 kilometres through rural eastern Ontario signed an open letter this week that called for Alto to suspend further development until a more comprehensive consultation can take place.
Imbleau acknowledged their concerns, called some of them premature because a final corridor has not been chosen, but also made it clear the timeline is not moving. Alto’s map of potential corridors is below.
Q: Does [that letter] give you any pause for this project?
A: “We had a very, very significant consultation. First phase. We will have a second phase once the alignment is known in the fall. That was done on purpose — because when you start with something that is very narrow, it gets frustrating because it feels that everything has been imposed and decided before consultation.
That’s why we decided to go with our large corridor. That was a bit annoying because people don’t have all the answers and they don’t know where we intend to go, and that was done on purpose, so we can get the feedback before deciding on the alignment. In the fall we decide on the alignment. But hear me right — a project like this, a long linear project, brings significant benefit to communities. But I’m going to be honest: it has local, important impacts for the landowners.”
Q: Would you commit today that no land acquisition begins in eastern Ontario until those mayors receive a formal written response to their concerns?
A: “We’re going to be publishing in June a ‘what we heard’ report, which is going to be a summary of the main comments and suggestions. We intend to start building this in segment one, which is between Ottawa and Montreal, in 2029. So you would appreciate that for the Montreal-Ottawa portion, we will start next fall — buying some land — or next year, because we need to have the land acquired before we start constructing this. It’s going to be a bit later for the portion that goes to Toronto and that goes to Quebec City. But we’re moving at a pace that is required to get big things done. Slowing things does not change the fundamental need of the project. And it will not change the fact that yes, it will always have local impacts that we will never minimize. We just want to do it right and completely transparently with whoever is affected.”
Note: He never answers the question. He instead confirms the land buying timeline.
On land acquisition and the expropriation process as spelled out in Bill C-15
On the process to acquire land needed to fulfill the project, Imbleau confirmed Alto intends to begin purchasing land on the Ottawa–Montreal segment in late 2026 or early 2027, as the construction start date of 2029 requires land be secured in advance.
He provided a rough estimate of 1,700 properties that would need to be acquired, roughly 40 per cent of which would be farmland or approximately 500 properties. Those numbers are estimates that keeps in mind that a final corridor has not been selected.
Important context in all of this is that Bill C-15 contains specific provisions for this project to expedite the expropriation process. The requirement to first attempt a negotiated purchase with landowners is removed, as is the owner’s ability to request a public hearing to challenge the requirement for their land. The Crown is allowed to use simplified notice procedures, shortening the timeframe for response.
So essentially, property owners have fewer opportunities to object to the acquisition if they so choose. Owners can challenge the compensation amount, which can include market value, damages, and relocation costs. Compensation challenges, in other words, would likely be fought after acquisition has already occurred.
Still, Imbleau heavily stressed they intend to fully negotiate with property owners first, making fair offers based on market values plus compensation for any long-term loss of income to people like farmers. He pointed to Alto's compensation and acquisition framework, released this week.
He likened the process to major highway developments and other large government projects. That comparison is precisely what critics in rural Eastern Ontario have been pushing back against — their argument being that farmland is not a highway median.
Q: A lot of people in Eastern Ontario say they’re being asked to trust a process that hasn’t really been defined yet. The corridor is sixty metres wide, lined by these three-metre walls. They’ll receive compensation based on several factors. But for a third-generation farmer, that’s not necessarily just a land transaction, that’s a way of life that’s being severed. How do you look people in the eye and say that this is a fair process to them?
A: “Yeah, I appreciate it. I come from a farmer’s region myself. I was raised in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pérade, which is the capital of the agricultural world in Quebec. So I know that reality. And in my hometown, there were two highways and one rail. So I’ve been through this and I’m not going to minimize this. What we said to landowners and farmers is: first, we will try to follow the existing limits of properties. Second, if we need to buy — well, we will need to buy some property — we will definitely compensate for the generations to come. That means in perpetuity. So not only do we look at the value of the land, but any loss for the crop or the farmer’s activity from a productivity standpoint will be compensated. And if there are other damages, we will also compensate for that. But you know what? There is no price tag for some things — for something that is near and dear to your heart. So I’m not selling something. I’m explaining how we can and we will do it. But I do appreciate that if you’re the one being affected on your land, you can’t take it personally. I’m not going to minimize that — but we still need to do it, the same way we’ve built large highways in the past or other large infrastructure that has created wealth in the country.”
Q: People feel like they will not have the choice. Bill C-15 was introduced specifically for this project. It will allow expropriation without a public hearing... These could eventually amount to forced sales, no?
A: “The process that has been changed is the challenge on the compensation. Hear me right — if the farmers want to have their own appraiser, we will consider that. We will have our appraiser and we will find the right value. And that can be debated in court. That has not changed. What could change is giving the impression that an appeal to a court could change how a high-speed rail running at 320 kilometres per hour can change its right of way from property to property. That would not be fair to say, because once the alignment is known, the ability to change from one property to the other is so limited — or almost non-existent — because once you move by a few tens of metres, it takes seven kilometres for the train to get back on a straight track. So that’s why, even though the process is a bit different, the commitment that I’m making is that we will start and prioritize with a negotiated agreement — a willing buyer, willing seller. That’s the best we can do with the human approach. Try to have an agreement, because those landowners are going to be our partners and neighbours for generations to come.”
Follow up Q: I respect what you’re saying. But just to clarify — are you saying there will be no forced sales as a result of this project?
A: “For sure there will be some expropriation that will be required to make this happen. We will have opposition. We’ll try to make it as smooth as possible, as human as possible. But it would be hiding our head in the sand to say that we will not have expropriation — it will, at one point in time, be required. And even some owners came to us during the open houses and said, ‘You know what? I’m willing to negotiate something with you, but it takes so long to get paid that once we have an agreement, why don’t you use the expropriation process for me to get paid faster?’ Which is fair — it gets money in their pocket faster. So willing buyer, willing seller — we’ll do that as much as possible. But I think the process of expropriation will be required in some cases.”
Q: What concrete steps will Alto take between now and the fall corridor announcement to rebuild trust [in Eastern Ontario]— or is the plan simply going to move ahead regardless?
A: “No, no, no — we’re not bullies here. We’re a public entity. It’s a Crown corporation. The dialogue will always continue. We will continue to explain how we do things, what it brings, explaining that other communities will benefit. So we’re always open to continuing the consultation. The consultations with Indigenous communities are ongoing — they will continue also. We need to create wealth for all the communities.”
Note: The answer offered no specific commitments or timeline for further engagement with eastern Ontario municipalities.
On the budget of between $60 and $90 billion
Q: Complex rail projects notoriously go over budget. Two of the partners in the consortium have been responsible for projects that encountered significant delays and cost overruns — including Ottawa’s own LRT expansion. Why should Canadians have confidence in the current cost estimates?
A: “Because what you have is not a cost estimate. We cannot throw a number about cost when we don’t know what we build and we don’t know where we will build it. What we have today is a working assumption, because I haven’t done sufficient engineering. Once the alignment is selected in the fall, then I do the detailed engineering and I will provide cost estimates that are reliable. So too often in Quebec and Ontario — in Canada — we throw early numbers that we say are estimates. They are not. They are working assumptions. Estimates are going to come after — in 2027 or 2028 when we do the engineering. I’m going to be stubborn and boring on this: today it’s a working assumption. Tomorrow we will have cost estimates and that is totally fair.”
Q: The idea, though, that that $90 billion ceiling that’s currently on it — we could see it go past that?
A: “Our working estimate today is seventy-five billion. So that’s why we’re using sixty-two to seventy. And I have nothing in front of me — considering the comparison and the benchmark of international projects on high-speed rail, the cost per kilometre, the number of bridges and tunnels that we have to build — that says that number is different. I’m sticking to the working assumption today. And when I have a budget, I will be pleased to go through and explain it. But for the time being, the $75 billion is still the working assumption.”
Note: Two things stand out here. First, he never directly answers whether the number could exceed $90 billion. Second, there is an inconsistency in which he argues Canadians shouldn’t treat the current figures as estimates, yet uses those same figures to reassure that the project is on track financially.
Next steps
Imbleau said a corridor will be chosen in the fall before a second round of public consultation is done, though, the land acquisition timeline and process is in the works as some property owners have already received requests to access land.
That corridor announcement should provide more clarity on the potential impacts on the municipalities, residents and farmers who have raised concerns.